What ideological positions are embedded within the practices and conceptions that we commonly identify as religions? Depending on one’s own ideological position and perspective, various people emphasize the patriarchy, ethnocentrism, and violence within various examples of religion. People will certainly debate if those ideological positions are typical in expressions of religion or an accretion to some idealized form. What about common definitions of what counts as religion? What ideological positions are embedded there? In classes I often emphasize the ways […]
Category: Religion in Culture
Posts in this category discuss how those aspects of culture known as religion can be studied in a way comparable to all other cultural practices.
Rant, Screed, or Valid Critique?
Dictionarily, the difference between a screed and a rant is the difference between written and oral discourse. What joins them together is a certain angry compulsion to “get the word out”, “wake up the lethargic” and/or, not without a certain brazenness, “right the wrong”. All-too-often, the words chosen are themselves hostile, and, rather than engaging the reader or listener, they serve to close the very doors they were originally intended, perhaps, to open. Not so with Professor Aaron Hughes’s latest […]
Going Strong
We established the REL blog two years ago this summer, originally linked to our 2012-13 lecture series on the relevance of the humanities (hence the theme of many of our early posts) but then widened the lens considerably last summer, developing a faculty blog along with one for current students, grads, and even for guests. Overall, we’ve had 23,500 hits, with 599 being our best single day. We’ll be posting from the archives throughout the summer, and publishing new content […]
It’s in the Record Books
Yes, the year-end report for 2013-14 has been written, proofed, and sent to the Dean. So it’s in the record books now. It was another great year in REL: the newly inaugurated Day Lecture series; a new undergraduate research symposium established; new faculty members coming on board and even hired for the coming year; four grads returned to talk about the relevance of their degrees; the Manly Cup Kick-ball Megabowl…; more Vimeo videos featuring some wonderful students, both new and […]
Studying Religion and…
The third installment of our “Studying Religion and…” video series is ready to roll! This album showcases the range of interests of our students and professors. The newest video, “Wonderin’ Where Our Majors Are…,” features many of our current double majors, and even a few triple majors. While you’re watching this one, take a look back at the others in the album and you’ll see that we live by our motto of studying religion in culture… all across culture. Wonderin’ […]
Criss-Cross
Big things are happening at REL this summer, including some moving. In case you haven’t already heard, Prof. Mike Altman and Prof. Sarah Rollens have criss-crossed (although, thankfully, not in true Hitchcock fashion) offices. Prof. Altman’s office is now on the second floor and Prof. Rollens has moved upstairs to the penthouse with the great view. In the game of musical offices, you grab the one closest to you when the music stops. […]
The Inaugural Day Lecture
On October 1st, 2013, Dr. Monica Miller, Professor of Religious Studies at Lehigh University, presented her “‘Picasso Baby!’: Art and the Making of New Black Gods in Hip-Hop” as the inaugural Day Lecture. The Day Lecture was generously established by friends and family of the late Zach Day, a graduate of our Department, to honor his memory, and is now an annual event thanks to the Zachary Daniel Day Memorial Support Fund. […]
Self-Help Jesus in America
By Allie Rash Allie Rash is a rising senior double majoring in Mathematics and Religious Studies. She hails from Franklin, TN, but calls North Carolina and Kansas home as well. This Spring Allie completed an independent study with Prof. Mike Altman on ideas of self-help in American Protestantism. In this post she reviews the final book they read together, Kate Bowler’s Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel. This post originally appeared on Allie’s independent study blog, Self-Help Jesus. […]
We Get Around
Did you get your copy of the annual newsletter? (We gave it a facelift… It looks good in Greece, no?) No? Well, find it here or send us your address. […]
“How Old is That?”
Among the assorted knick-knacks that line my office’s shelves—ranging from such relics as photos of friends and family or gifts I’ve accumulated over the years to a selection of tattered romance novels shelved long ago among my books by mischievous students—is a nicely matted and framed “fossil” of Knightia, a long extinct genus of small boney North American freshwater fish, dating to more than 35 million years ago (or what scientists know as the Eocene epoch), and which was recovered […]